Ben Nevis (Douglas Gap), 6th April 2008

Our next trip took us back to the Ben where we decided on a choice of either North or South Castle Gullies, No3, No4 or the Douglas Gap. Myself and Mark spent the previous day doing some "challenging" skiing on Aonach Mor, before meeting the rest of the guys at the North Face car park early sunday morning. After heavy snow the Ben was covered and plans were hastily discussed as to what would be do-able.

Once we got up into Coire na Ciste, we watched other climbers to see how they were getting on up in No 3 gully. As it turned out they seemed to be almost thigh deep in fresh snow, and although we did see climbers going up, and down No3 and No4, we decided we didn't have the experience to do that - yet! Gordon, Willy and myself above the CIC hut.

After some thought, we decided to go for the Douglas Gap, which lies between the Douglas Boulder (a VERY big boulder, more of a mountain) and the rest of Tower Ridge.Again at grade 1, we used this as practice for belays etc.

Willy led up the fairly straightforward gully, which had good views back into Coire na Ciste. Once at the top there was a sort of snow platform a few feet wide, from which the snow fell away again down the other side. Willy found a great "spike" of rock from which to abseil off (hidden by Gordon), which we practiced in 25m pitches. Willy setting up for the next abseil. Once we were out of the gully we descended over more mixed ground, so we tried abseiling down over icey rock which seemed to go ok. Then it was ropes away and the steady plod back past the hut and down to the cars.